What Crazy Rich Asians proves

It is now too late for me to go see Crazy Rich Asians in theaters,
as my Asian friend had informed me was my duty as a fellow Asian. We
needed to turn up at the box office, she explained, because if CRA
didn’t do well, then studio executives would take this as a sign
that movies about Asian experiences weren’t profitable in the US,
and we would never achieve representation in popular media. Another
friend told me he bought a ticket and didn’t even go see it. What’s
$15, compared to a chance to show studio executives how stupid
they’ve been for waiting so long to make a movie like this – the
last major American film to sign an all Asian cast was The Joy Luck
club, 25 years ago. Lucky for me and my race, Crazy Rich Asians was
immensely profitable without me.

Let me first say that I think representation matters. Real life is
based on movies, books and TV – we learn about how the world works
from the media we consume, and we are shaped by the stories we are
exposed to. When I was a middle school student looking for my niche,
movies and TV taught me that people who look like me can be either a
nerd or comic relief (I went with both). I didn’t think that I
could really be liked by girls, and I certainly didn’t think that I could be the main love interest
of a story. CRA shows future middle school Asian boys that they can
grow up and be desirable without sacrificing their Asian-ness.

And having more movies like this will be even better. Which brings
up the question: does the success of Crazy Rich Asians also pave the
way for more movies featuring Asian stories?

On one episode of Whiting Wongs with Jessica Gao (Silicon Valley,
Rick and Morty) and Dan Harmon (Community, Rick and Morty), Dante
Basco (Hook, Avatar: The Last Airbender) describes Hollywood
green-lighting as a market, in the sense that it’s incredibly
efficient at figuring out the value of things. Studios would never
knowingly turn down a chance to make the most profitable movie, which
means that studio executives who are good at appraising movies for
mass appeal make fewer flops and more hits, their studios make more
money, and the they have more capital in the future to make more
films. Dante says that the solution to Asian American representation
is two-fold – people who decide what movies get made need to be
open to making movies with Asian Americans, and Asian American
creatives need to try to write more, act more, and direct more. In
fact, he says, if we can do that and be great at it, then studio
executives will have no choice but to make more of our movies, unless
they hate money. We should try to prove that it’s profitable to
make movies about Asian American stories.

CRA is a good example of what can happen at the intersection of
these two things. It’s refreshing to see more than one Asian face
in a movie trailer, and the film has received positive reviews
regardless of its part in the representation movement. But going to
see CRA is not a kick in the crotch of studio executives, you’re
throwing them your money for god’s sake! You’re not going to
slowly condition them to make more bets on Asian movies through
psychological reinforcement. The only thing that gets movies made is
money.

So let’s look at the money. The
most profitable Hollywood movies aren’t just superhero movies,
they’re woke movies.
Which is to say, basically,
movies with Strong Female
Leads and Black People ™.
Consider the themes
from
the biggest films of 2017 and
2018 – a woman defies the
patriarchy (Star Wars: The Last Jedi), and
black people are secretly better
(Black Panther). Crazy
Rich
Asians
wasn’t made in spite of executives thinking it would be
unprofitable, it was made because
executives thought it would be immensely profitable. It doesn’t changethings,
it just
shows
how
society
is
changing. Making
movies isn’t activism, it’s capitalism. And proving
that your race or gender is a profitable demographic isn’t social
progress, it’s business as usual.

Movies are a barometer for
culture. When ideas gain popularity, they also gain movie potential
(which
is why I predict that in the next 3 years we will see a film that
critics will say “perfectly captures gen-Z humor,” and I will see
it and hecking love it).
Crazy Rich Asians is
tinted with Asian American subculture in a way that doesn’t stop
and explain itself. In fact, the whole appeal is that it is
unapologetic about it – if the story had been watered-down to be
more palatable for Westerners, it would have been derided for
whitewashing. You can see
this same thing in the new popularity of pho,
K-pop and anime – Asian culture is being gradually absorbed into
universal culture, and it is
specifically because of its
Asian-ness. People want authentic Vietnamese pho, they want to rap in
Korean, and they want their Anime subbed,
not dubbed.

Crazy Rich Asians got made
because a studio noticed this shift, not because Asians proved
something about ourselves. The shift itself probably happened due to
a combination of increased globalization, the formation of internet
communities, and the chaotic churn of popular ideas.

I’m not sure that it even makes
sense to talk about proving
ourselves. If that
means showing that Asian
movies can be profitable, well, that’s been done. If it’s about
making sure
our stories are not held to a higher standard before they are
considered profitable, remember that studios don’t just want to
make profitable movies, they want to make the most profitable movie
they can, and as long as white male writers continue to receive the
most support from their parents for careers in the movie industry,
this is unlikely to happen – minorities
are held to a higher standard
insofar as we are required
to beat the numbers. The real
question is whether we are building up momentum, or whether we are
doomed to start and stall forever.
The answer
doesn’t depend on Hollywood execs or Asian
creatives as much as it
depends on the a priori
cultural change.